


Where The Plane Brought Us

by ColaCrescendo



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Anxious Katsuki Yuuri, Christophe Giacometti & Victor Nikiforov Are Best Friends, Grand Prix Final, Katsuki Yuuri Actually Flirting, M/M, Meet on a Plane AU, Photographer Victor, Some Characters Are Still Skaters, Wanderlust, Yuuri and Phichit Are Best Friends
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-12
Updated: 2018-06-12
Packaged: 2019-05-21 12:19:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14915258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ColaCrescendo/pseuds/ColaCrescendo
Summary: Katsuki Yuuri never traveled. He had everything he needed back at home. Traveling was for college, and now college was over. However, his best friend Phichit had a new obsession, and somehow this obsession brought Yuuri to the 2016 Figure Skating Grand Prix Final in Barcelona, tickets in hand for both him and his friend. But, if that wasn't interesting enough, the attractive man in the plane seat next to him certainly was.





	Where The Plane Brought Us

Yuuri stared somberly into his coffee cup. What used to be a nicely blended Frappuccino was now a liquidy mess filled with much too many chocolate chips. He wasn’t usually a big coffee drinker, but as soon as his eyes had graced the presence of the Amsterdam airport’s Starbucks, his tired and weary mind caught up with the realization that he was craving both energy and chocolate. So there he was, three fourths of a double chocolate chip Frappuccino later, gazing at what he had left. He suddenly felt nauseous, but he couldn’t tell if it was from the coffee or the prospect that he was about to endure another plane trip next to another complete stranger.

" _Barcelona better be well worth this torture,_ " he thought to himself, swirling the melted coffee mixture around in boredom. He had just survived an 11 hour flight from Tokyo to Amsterdam, after spending nearly the whole previous day on a train from his home town, Hasetsu, to Tokyo. Thankfully he was able to rest in a hotel before continuing the journey, but it didn’t change the fact that he was, in that current moment, not only exhausted, but slightly delirious as well. Also, his flight would begin boarding in ten minutes.

Yuuri wrinkled up his nose at the exterior of the plastic cup for the third time in the past five minutes. What sounded like such a good idea about an hour before was now leaving small pools of water all over the table he had claimed in the cafe. After standing up and stretching, he finally disposed of it and began to head back to his gate.

A habit he had picked up from previous flights was observing the people hunched in the cramped waiting area to see who he would be flying with, just in case he would end up teaming up with one of them like in an airplane disaster movie. There was a mother who looked even more exhausted than Yuuri himself was, slowly combing her fingers through one of her child’s hair and pulling another, smaller child, closer to her. One row behind her was a tall businessman with a laptop and a cup of coffee in hand that was most likely much more bitter than the desert drink Yuuri himself had just drank. After taking an empty seat on the end of a row, his eyes scanned through a few more tired families and annoyed businessmen before stopping on someone different. There was one man here with oddly beautiful platinum hair and long bangs that covered his left eye as he stared down at his phone with a concentrated expression. Just as his mind provided and shouted the word ‘Cute!’ at him, he looked away in embarrassment, focusing instead on some of the other passengers.

An announcement sounded for his group to begin boarding, and Yuuri quickly stood up to join the line. After several minutes of line waiting, boarding pass scanning, and polite hellos between airplane attendants welcoming him onto the plane, he was able to take his seat. He was on the far right side of the plane near the wing, but the view wouldn’t matter all that much since he was placed on the outside seat of the two paired together. Whoever had the window seat hadn’t boarded yet, and since it was a full flight he knew there would be someone. 

In mild frustration, and just a little bit of anxiousness, he grabbed his bag and opened the Pringles can he bought for the flight. As soon as he bit into one of the chips, the platinum colored hair man (who had to be some sort of model for sure) from earlier stepped into view and stopped right at his row. The two made eye contact and Yuuri immediately felt his face heat up as he realized that not only was he going to sit next to this handsome man for the whole two and a half hour flight, he had also just looked him directly in the face as he stuffed his own with Pringles. He hurriedly closed the can back up and threw it back in his bag, trying desperately not to look to his left and notice the way the man’s shirt rode up just slightly as he reached up to put his own, larger bag in the overhead compartment. He failed at this task of course, but covered up his failure by burying himself in his coat a little more and staring at the back of the seat in front of him.

“Excuse me,” The man raised his hand in greeting politely and moved forward a bit, signaling that he wanted to get through to his seat. Yuuri tucked his legs closer to him and pulled the bag in his lap a little closer to his chest, trying not to think about the way the other man’s body brushed up against his own. Once he sat down, Yuuri took out his phone and began fiddling with it nervously.

“I’m Victor, by the way,” the man, Victor, declared suddenly. Yuuri wasn’t sure what to say. None of the other people he sat next to had ever tried to introduce themselves, and suddenly this one did. It took him less than a moment to realize that Victor was the one person he would actually have wanted to introduce himself, and " _How did I get so lucky?_

_Oh my god Yuuri play it cool don’t be weird you can do it._ " 

“I’m Yuuri,” he reciprocated, dipping his head down slightly in greeting, and holding a smile a little at the end. " _Nailed it! I’m the King of Social Interaction, HECK yes._ " When he looked back up, Victor’s face had lit up, which could have been one of the most endearing things Yuuri had ever seen.

“Nice to meet you Yuuri! Is Barcelona your final stop?”

Just like that, Victor had not only introduced himself, but he had also gone farther than Yuuri had initially thought. He started a conversation. As nervous as he was, he couldn’t help but feel excited at the thought. Someone who looked so frustratingly untouchable was actually polite, and it was wonderful.

“Yeah, I’m actually going for a few days to watch the Figure Skating Grand Prix Final with my friend. He got into figure skating after watching that movie that came out a few years back, The King and the Skater, and he’s been obsessed with it ever since.”

Victor’s face held a look of concentration for a moment, until his lips curled up into another giant smile, and Yuuri wasn’t sure what he was smiling at but he was sure that he didn’t really want him to stop.

“Wow, that’s incredible,” he paused for a moment, thinking. “I’m going to watch the Grand Prix Final too!” Suddenly, he grabbed Yuuri’s hands and leaned in, almost like he was studying his face or gauging his reaction. He was shockingly close, and shockingly gorgeous. “Yuuri. Please come to dinner with me tomorrow.”

Victor’s face blurred out of focus, replaced by static that Yuuri’s mind must have procured somehow, along with a lot of sudden white light. As it turns out, the plane had just started to move and they turned past the sun which happily greeted them through their window. Yuuri wasn’t focused on any of that, however. He was worried that he was about to pass out, because this stranger had proven to be more extraordinary than he ever expected. “I… what?” 

Victor laughed a little, leaning back to put his seatbelt on. “You see, I happen to be friends with one of the competitors, and he invited me to dinner with some of the others! You and your friend should definitely come with us!”

" _Oh,_ " Yuuri thought, mildly disappointed it wasn’t just going to be the two of them, but immediately in awe at the fact that Victor just invited him and Phichit to dinner with the actual competitors. As wonderful both Victor and his proposition was, Yuuri didn’t believe him. Honestly, Yuuri _couldn’t_ believe him. The entire thing was too absurd. “Do you typically invite the stranger sitting next to you on a plane to dinner with a group of famous people every time you travel?” He asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Nope, just the cute Japanese ones that seem to really like pringles,” Victor replied, smirking.

Yuuri, at this point, wasn’t sure to be embarrassed again or angry, so he settled for laughing. " _But holy shit Yuuri, he called you cute._ " The more he thought about how ridiculous all of this was, the more he laughed. He had to clutch his stomach in pain and lean over when he realized that Victor was laughing too. They must have looked crazy to all the other passengers, but Yuuri, beaten by the long trip he had and brought out of his shell by the most wonderful man, couldn’t find it in him to care.

The plane took off.

* * *

Yuuri found out so much about Victor in the next two hours. The two of them couldn’t stop talking, like they were both absolutely hooked on every word the other said, and obsessed with sharing parts of themselves in return. Yuuri knew that Victor was Russian, and that back in St. Petersburg he had a poodle named Makkachin who was adorable and although he had seen about fifty pictures already, he wouldn’t mind seeing fifty more. He was a photographer, and took sometimes up to two weeks once a month traveling and recording his adventures through images and words. 

They even watched La La Land together, thanks to the little screen on the back of their seats and a shared set of earbuds in their ears. They found out at the end that they would share a mutual love for the movie, and also a sensitive nature, as they both fought back tears while the ending credits rolled. After all of this, however, Yuuri still didn’t know how on earth Victor knew professional figure skaters.

The two sat turned towards each other with Yuuri’s legs pulled towards himself on the seat, one hand resting around them and another hand reaching for some more complimentary airline pretzels. “What happens to Makkachin when you travel?” He wondered aloud before putting another pretzel in his mouth.

Victor leaned the side of his head on the back of his seat, hands occupied with squeezing the travel pillow he had laying in his lap. “My little brother watches her when I’m gone. His name is Yuri too, actually.”

“Really? What’s he like?” Yuuri asked, silently thinking that there could only be one Yuuri, though also knowing that he had only known this man for a few hours, therefore then silently scolding himself for being ridiculously possessive.

Victor sighed in both fondness and exasperation, laughing a little into it. “Well, he’s only fifteen but he has the mouth of a sailor, and he’s pretty rude to a lot of people. He really likes cats of all types, and he’s pretty much the only one in my family that I have a real relationship with.”

“What about your parents?” Yuuri asked, shifting a bit in his seat.

“My parents have never really been big parts of my life, emotionally at least. Financially is a different story though. They show that they care by paying for everything I need, which is a blessing. Without them, I wouldn’t be able to travel as much as I do.”

“They pay for every single trip you go on? Wow, they must have a lot of money,” Yuuri blurted, before realizing that what he had just said was incredibly inappropriate and covering his mouth. “I’m so sorry, that was so rude of me to say oh my gosh.”

Victor waved it away before Yuuri could continue. “It’s fine, you’re completely right. I was born in a pretty, well... accomplished family. They’ve always liked to show that off, so it’s not like you wouldn’t have found out eventually anyways.” The two sat in awkward silence, both aware of the fact that Victor had just implied that Yuuri would possibly meet his parents someday, even though they had only known each other for about an hour. Unless he wasn’t implying that at all, and Yuuri had just jumped to conclusions. " _Probably the latter._ "

“Anyways,” Victor continued hurriedly, “My little brother cares a lot about me too, even though all he really says to me are insults. When he was younger, he used to want to copy everything I did. If I wanted something for Christmas, he wanted the same thing. If I started playing an instrument, he started playing one too. He’s even gotten really good at figure skating because of me.”

“You were a figure skater?”

“Oh, yeah! I was fairly competitive in it for a while, and I got to some big league championships too before I quit. That’s actually how I met my friend Chris, the one that invited me to dinner with some of the other competitors,” Victor explained with a happy look in his eyes. Yuuri couldn’t help but imagine the sight of him skating, twisting, turning, dancing, and creating music with his body. Recently, Yuuri had grown quite fond of figure skaters, but the only reason he wasn’t as into it as Phichit, was because of jealousy. He ached for the ability to do that, but he knew he was much too old at that point to even start trying. Of course he could still learn how to skate, which he had at one point when he was a teenager, but he could never compete.

“I know him… Christophe Giacometti? Isn’t he that Swiss skater that usually skates to really um...” he thought for a second on how to word his sentence without saying something that would immediately make them both uncomfortable. “Adult themes?”

Victor snickered, almost like a child would when he was somewhere where it be impolite to laugh. “Yeah, that’s definitely him. He’s really into his boyfriend, so I think that’s why he does those sort of routines, as sort of a tribute to him. But also, he’s had that sort of personality pretty much for as long as I’ve known him, so it could just be his way of expressing himself.”

Yuuri nodded, feeling just a little hot underneath his skin. Well, at least his question had been answered, but that wasn’t the only thing. The captain came across the intercom to announce that the flight would be landing in about ten minutes, and Yuuri felt almost like he was crashing down to Earth, rather than slowly descending down with the plane. " _What if he doesn’t actually want to talk to me again after this? What if I misjudged everything?_ " He couldn’t help but feel as if poison was spreading in his stomach due to his own uncertainty. He tried to keep his face solid and unchanged from before, but he knew from experience that his emotions had always been written on his face, in one way or another.

“Wow, we haven’t added each other’s phone numbers yet, we should do that before we land,” Victor said, almost as if he knew. Maybe he did, or maybe he and Yuuri were just on a similar train of thought, though with Victor just being the one with the initiative. He had been the whole time anyways, of course. Yuuri knew that if it wasn’t for Victor introducing himself, he wouldn’t have said a word the entire time. And, he wouldn’t have experienced the new feeling that was covering up almost all the poison in his stomach.

Never ending hope, and excitement. There was a twinge of fear, but it was the kind that you felt when you were on a rollercoaster, about to go down the first hill… the biggest hill.

“Oh, and I’ll send you a message tonight too. I won’t do that before we land or anything of course.”

“Alright,” Yuuri felt his cheeks settle into a more comfortable position as he smiled. He didn’t realize, but he had been smiling the whole time, to the point where it was almost painful not to. “That sounds really good.”

* * *

Baggage claim came and went, as did all the other lines he had to wait in as he came into the country. Yuuri waited in every single one of them with Victor, and they continued their conversation, which was now about houseplants. They both had their bags, thanks to a little game they played where they guessed which bag on the conveyor belt was the others. It turned out to be easier than he thought, since Victor’s bag had little cameras all over it, to which Yuuri instantly knew whose it was. “It had to be yours because it was the flashiest one,” he said. Or, more like huffed out, because as soon as he thought of the joke he instantly sent himself into a fit of laughter, which also made Victor laugh. As it turns out, Victor was one of those people that laughed regardless of if the joke was funny or not, or even if there was a joke at all. He just laughed whenever he heard someone else laughing. (Yuuri knew his joke wasn’t funny of course, but he was tired and this man made him feel like air.)

Once they were finished laughing, Yuuri let out a sigh. It was the kind of deep breath that you let out after laughing, but also the kind that knew that you were about to not be. Victor was leaning his head on his arms, which were leaning against the raised handle of his suitcase, carefully as to not push it back down. He was smiling, too. He was just smiling at Yuuri, and his hair was covering his face a little, and Yuuri reminded himself for what must have been the 20th time that he barely knew Victor, but oh… he was adorable. And, they both had to leave. 

“Um, I’ll see you tomorrow, right?” Yuuri asked, half as a goodbye, and half as reassurance.

“Yes, definitely. I’ll definitely see you tomorrow, Yuuri.”

“Alright then, I’ll definitely see you tomorrow, Victor.”

And with that, and a couple of exchanged waves, Yuuri walked away from the most interesting man he had ever met.

* * *

The song from La La Land was stuck in his head. It started in the taxi, probably since the driver didn’t have the radio on, and it was eerily silent for a taxi ride.

_I don't care if I know_  
_Just where I will go_  
_'Cause all that I need is this crazy feeling_  
_A rat-tat-tat of my heart_

_Think I want it to stay_

It sounded like a song of new beginnings, and as crazy as it was, that was what his life felt like, as soon as he stepped off of that plane.

He had just finished unpacking, and went ahead and chose which bed he would be sleeping in for the next couple of days. Phichit would be getting there in another hour or so, but Yuuri was sure that he wouldn’t mind sleeping in the bed closer to the door rather than the window, especially after what Yuuri was about to tell him. His phone vibrated, and Yuuri wondered if Phichit’s flight had landed earlier than expected, but it was from someone else.

**Victor Nikiforov**  
1 min ago  
_Image attached_

****

**Victor Nikiforov**  
just now  
_A new contact photo for you to use for your new contact :D_

****

Yuuri opened the message to find a bright image of Victor, one arm around who he now easily recognized as Makkachin, and the other arm lifted up in a peace sign. His smile was big, but his eyes smiled too, one eye sparkling and the other one squeezed shut in an adorable wink.

He stared at the photo for what must have been a good 3 minutes, thankful that he had read receipts turned off, and he could pretend that he hadn’t just opened the message immediately. He had to return the favor, and he had the perfect idea of how to do it. 

After scrolling through his camera roll for a bit, he finally found what he was looking for. It was a picture of him in an ice rink, posing like a model, with his back facing the camera, one hand on his hip, and his head looking over his shoulder, obviously as a joke. That picture was taken 6 months ago, when it was summertime and there was almost no one in the rink. He didn’t skate competitively, but he still loved to visit his old friend Yuuko there. He went several times over that summer because it was the summer after he really got into figure skaters. Yuuri was typically really shy, but he felt really comfortable around Yuuko, enough to agree to a funny photo shoot. The playfulness of his pose in the photo reminded him of how he felt around Victor, and the ice rink he was in reminded him of the circumstances in which they met.

Yuuri knew that he was a hopeless romantic, but he hit send.

**Yuuri Katsuki**  
just now  
_Your new contact is honored to gift you with a photo of his own._

**Author's Note:**

> Please excuse any mistakes I make, since typically I write from experience, but I have never been to any of the places written in this fanfiction, nor have I lived or seen the life of a professional photographer or travel blogger. However, I do have a boyfriend who I love very much and I have definitely inserted experiences and feelings from my relationship with him into this. But as far as the occupations go, please let me know if I majorly mess up with anything if you know anything about those two jobs, OR if you are familiar with/live in Spain or Barcelona. Also, this will be a two chapter story, as far as I have planned at the moment. Thank you very very much for reading, lovelies!


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